Associations Among Social Contexts and Relationships with Trans and Nonbinary Youths’ Mental Health

Abstract

Due to society’s devaluation of their identity and lived experiences, transgender andnonbinary (TNB) youth have consistently reported worse mental health outcomes than their cisgender peers. Social support from groups such as families, peers, and other TNB community members have been found to be beneficial to TNB youths’ mental health. Thus, the overarching aim of this dissertation was to explore the relationships between the underexplored social environments of social media, family rejection, and friend support and TNB youths’ mental health through two research papers. Both papers utilized participants from the Braving and Enduring the U.S. as Authentic Trans youth Study (BEATS) where all 319 participants were between the ages of 13 to 22 years, identified as transgender, nonbinary, or other non-cisgender gender identity, and lived in the U.S. or a U.S. territory. The first paper examined TNB youths’ social media use and mental health. This paper found that using Instagram and not TikTok was related to more positive mental health outcomes, and time spent on social media per day, using TikTok and not Instagram, and using both TikTok and Instagram were not significant predictors of mental health outcomes. Additionally, participant nonbinary identity or age did not moderate these relationships. The second paper examined the relationship between family rejection, friend support, and mental health in TNB adolescents. This paper found that family rejection was related to worse mental health outcomes and friend support was related to better mental health outcomes. Friend support was not found to be a significant moderator between family rejection and mental health for TNB youth. Again, neither nonbinary identity nor age moderated this relationship. The work presented in these two papers supports and advances research on TNB youths’ social media use and experiences of family rejection and friend support.